Just last week in our gaming podcast we were talking about how Gears of War 2 wasn’t going to make a PC debut because it has a bit of a problem with piracy. We were afraid this movement was going to cause game developers and publishers to stick with console’s “big can of DRM” over the PC for many future releases.
Turns out, Fallout 3 was stolen before it was announced as finished and has begun to show up on torrents around the Internet. This, of course, has lead folks to believe the leak took place at the manufacturing plant given the obvious circumstances behind the event. Sure, the title could have been leaked at the developers studio, but who would want to cause their products sales to suffer? Perhaps a hacker broke into the studio and stole the raw images?
There are plenty of possibilities, but the fact of the matter is this is the “DRM” console version of the game. It has been stolen and downloaded by thousands of people who are going to actually take the time to make it work on their ‘tweaked’ console. Just when we said “it’s too hard to hack the Xbox 360 and its games,” some pirate comes out and does it!
While the pirates set sea with the glorious booty that is Fallout 3, Bethesda’s staying hush about the incident for now. In odd timing, Ubisoft came out, prior to this event, talking in respect to Tom Clancy EndWar saying:
“To be honest, if PC wasn’t pirated to hell and back, there’d probably be a PC version coming out the same day as the other two.” (gamasutra)
Perhaps, the pirates want to bring some attention to the console market in terms of piracy so developers continue to produce PC titles? If nobody is safe, there will be no one safe-haven console to run to when pirates are stealing “potential sales.”
Great episode and nice to see quick turn around for this!
@Indi Dev: Not sure there is much to add that hasn’t already been said. I hope that the Dev can fix his situation as Paul was pointing out it did seem like he was very unprepared for managing this. I still feel that this is a sign to be cautious with Kickstarter, but not out right abandoning it. As Jonah pointed out there were worse cases.
@Fallout 4: I am looking forward to this game, also FO series wasn’t always First Person perspective, it used to be Isometric like Wasteland 2. So for some Wasteland 2 is like having a Isometric Fallout 3.
I loved the trailer, the color scheme seems so much more alive than in FO3 and FO NV. I think I prefer a voiced protagonist so I am looking forward to that as well.
@Steam returns: I can see how this can be easily abused, however I too have a lot of games on my list some I want to play and some that I don’t have any intention of playing but got through others or through Humble Bundle. Also when games start being like $2 it’s really harder to feel that need to resist.
Now here’s a Question since it’s been awhile for a QotW: Which do you prefer a Voiced protagonist (or one that talks at least via text if not voice) or a Blank slate (Chrono, Link, Mario, etc)